<b>Hub-page architecture: the spine that holds 10k leaf pages</b>

<b>Hub-page architecture: the spine that holds 10k leaf pages</b>

Leaf pages without a hub structure are an orphan farm. Design the spine first; generate leaves into it.

The three-layer spine:
— Layer 1 — Pillar (1 per major dimension): <code>/loans/</code>. Owner-action: editorial, hand-built, links down to all hubs. Gate: must exist before any leaf.
— Layer 2 — Hubs (1 per category value): <code>/loans/{type}/</code>. Auto-generated, lists and links to its leaves, links up to the pillar. Gate: a hub with under 5 qualifying leaves should not exist — fold it up.
— Layer 3 — Leaves: <code>/loans/{type}/{state}/</code>. Each links up to its hub and across to siblings.

Rules:
☐ Every leaf is reachable from the pillar in ≤2 clicks.
☐ Hubs paginate at 100 leaves with <code>rel</code> sequencing, not infinite scroll that hides links from crawlers.
☐ A hub's own content includes a real summary, not just the link list, or it's a thin page itself.
☐ Empty hubs 404 or 301 up — never a blank index.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.